Is it really true.. that our aim as historians is in some sense to recapture past reality, “to retrieve the truth about the past?” If so, what do “past reality” and “the truth about the past” mean? How does the historian’s understanding of “reality” and “truth” differ–as most surely it does–from that of the direct participant? And what implications does this difference have for what we do as historians? It is not likely that questions of this sort will ever be finally answered. Yet clearly we must keep asking such questions if we are to maintain the highest levels of honesty and self-awareness concerning our work as historians. Paul A. Cohen
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It is not likely that questions of this sort will ever be finally answered. Yet clearly we must keep asking such questions if we are to maintain the highest levels of honesty and self-awareness concerning our work as historians. We all know how easy it is to get caught up in our own biases and preconceived notions about the past and we must always be conscious of the fact that there were no video cameras or recording devices at the time of history as we know it.

Source: Discovering History In China: American Historical Writing On The Recent Chinese Past

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